Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Flickr Photo by House Committee on Education and the Workforce Dem)

A survey reported yesterday indicates opposition to the United States has risen among Pakistanis in the last couple of years. More Pakistanis now view the US as “the enemy” than in past years. This is largely a result of the presence of US personnel in the country and how opposed Pakistanis are to drone strikes. Now The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), which has been analyzing the US’s “covert war on terror” extensively, has posted an interview with Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich, who suggests the objections Pakistanis have toward the US put America at war with Pakistan.

Kucinich contends if Pakistan “resents” America’s help, actions by the US then become clear acts of “aggression.” He adds the Pakistan government and the US “have a very famous double-game going and our two nations are constantly faking each other out.” The two countries have “carried the double-game to an art form where [they] can’t tell what is real anymore.” This is a result of “no transparency or accountability,” which makes it impossible for a country to “assert non-cooperation.” And it makes everything “so murky” that the only conclusions that can be drawn about relations come from the facts on the ground—facts that “include a lot of dead civilians.”

He calls the expanded assassination program, which lacks very minimal legal justification (if any), a journey into moral depravity.

International law means nothing, laws of war mean nothing. I am not assigning that condition to any one individual, but I am saying that the programme itself bespeaks an approach which depraves moral law, the constitution, and international law. That sets us into an endless cycle of violence.

The “endless cycle of violence,” as Kucinich understands, is preserved by a US government that since 9/11 has “set international law aside.” In fact, “declarations of war have basically vanished” and been “replaced by an administration’s assertion of the power to declare a global war. And that has been buttressed, that was under the Bush administration, now under the Obama administration it is the derogation to the executive of the power to strike at any nation at any time for any reason.” This is what lawyers like Maria LaHood of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) have said—the real issue with the drone war is flouting of the rule of law and the state-sanctioned killings that are occurring away from the battlefield.

Congress is a complicit enabler in allowing the Executive Branch of the US government to advance this standard:

Congress, unfortunately, has been slow to claim its responsibility under the US Constitution, ‘the power to declare war’. When the Constitution was written the war-power was bifurcated in this way. Under article 1 the Congress founders wanted to restrain what they called ‘the dog of war’ by putting it into the hands of a legislator whose constituents would be affected by it, and would therefore have to face the people at some point.

The result of Congress not doing its duty is America is currently exporting American values through drones that include “summary executions, no rights to an accused, no arrest process, no reading of charges, no trial by jury, no judge, only an executioner.” Because this is what America, in effect, is doing. Military-age males are being killed and reported as “militants,” when they have been afforded no judicial process. Kucinich is certain there will be blowback as a result.

He does not think the Obama administration has yet to make a clear case for how drone us has contributed to US security:

As a matter of fact it could be, the argument could be made that it makes us less safe because instead of dealing with the one person that we are killing, we are going to be dealing with all their friends and relatives down the road. We are creating, every bomb that we drop, every missile that we launch, there are sure to be reprisals. And the reprisals, you know, there is no time-date set here, there is no time limit.

Kucinich chides the media for not engaging in a better effort to uncover who is really dying in drone attacks. He states:

It’s not bad form to kill civilians, it’s only bad form to talk about it. That’s the problem. Let me say that there has been a tradition of American journalists in modern times to serve as the spear carriers for the government. They may look like pens but these are the spears of supernumeraries who have reporters’ cards. It’s what happens when you have fewer and fewer newspapers, and newspapers that are tied to large corporate interests. And a lack of enough institutions in the major media who are willing to serve as an effective counter-balance.

The question of what America would do if China, Russia or Iran sent a drone over the US is critical to Kucinich. It is one that Obama administration press secretary dodged or refused to answer when ABC news correspondent Jake Tapper asked him this question earlier this month. The administration has also been unwilling to openly address the reality that a precedent is being set by the expanded use of drones.

“What is the legal authority for the government to conduct extrajudicial killings, where did this come from?’ Really, where did this come from? Says who?” Kucinich asks. None of these questions have been satisfactorily answered, despite the speeches given as a substitute for real transparency. And for that reason, Kucinich wrote a letter and convinced twenty-five members to sign it. He wants answers about the legal justification for drone strikes, especially “signature strikes,” which are strikes launched against targets that engage in certain “patterns of behavior.”

Like Nation journalist Jeremy Scahill, he considers drone executions to be “murder.” He draws an analogy, “If someone shot a grocer and his defense was ‘it was a targeted killing’ he would be put on trial for his life. But we are told that these targeted killings are somehow to be considered apart from any legal system.”

It is all morally perverse and incredibly depraved. The administration is consciously using the proliferation and revolution in robotic technology as a cover for illegal wars of aggression abroad. It is nothing but an “Orwellian exercise of semantics” to say America is not at war in Pakistan, Somalia or Yemen. And as Kucinich concludes at the end of this exceptional interview, America is creating a world where there is “carnage everywhere.”

Vigilantism is part of the American psyche. “Getting a posse together”, lynch mobs, “bring em in dead or alive”…our media is inundated with shows of rogue officers and people taking the law into their own hands. It is a national pastime like baseball. Zimmerman is the latest example of that mentality. This is the country that believes murdering someone is justice.

Once upon a time, liberals actually examined the premises of the War On Terror. Some of them argued that the War On Terror was a vast waste of time, money, and lives, and that the War On Terror would probably be irrelevant if 1) “terror” were treated as a criminal matter and not as war, and 2) if the US developed a more proactive Middle East foreign policy instead of cozying up to the Israeli apartheid state and the Saudi oil elites while maintaining proxy governments in Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on.

But those arguments were advanced when Republicans were in the White House, before “hope” and “change” transformed foreign policy opinion.

The Obama administration has brought us a “postmodern” Presidency, transparency, and warfare(described as “kinetic military action”), and with the help of the puppet denizens in Congress, a total refutation of the concepts of accountability and responsibility. We are truly “blessed”.

Kevin: I understand completely the objections to the drone strikes, the assassinations, etc. I side with you largely.

But those of us who don’t want these goings on, we have to answer a serious strategic and tactical question: “What do we propose to do to stop a serious violent threat from stateless actors who set up shop in these areas?”

The drone strikes kill civilians – this is deplorable – and I’d suggest that instead of drones, if killing the primary targets in these strikes is of utter necessity to protecting us and our friends, then we need to have boots on the ground doing the killing. That is a much better way to kill bad actors while sparing people who are blameless. However, to do that, we have to greatly expand our military presence near areas in Southwest Asia and Africa.

What do you suggest be done to replace drone strikes, that will stop for real the threat of violence directed at *our* civilian population ultimately from stateless actors operating in lawless areas of the world?

This may be a quaint idea to limit further attacks against us. Perhaps if we stopped our foreign policy of pursuing hegemony through covert and overt meddling and respected the sovereignty of other nations it would minimize the reach and influence of the stateless actors. If we stopped giving them excuses and paid for, rather than attempting to steal their resources through threats and intimidation we could achieve our ends without terrorizing others and/or subjecting them to military or economic warfare.

To say this is part of the “American psyche” is disingenuous. It is part of Human Nature. People want revenge.
This is why cop shows are so popular because people can live out their revenge fantasies vicariously without risk.
People love to see others they think are guilty “get it”.

Kucinich has the financial resources to be a strong advocate for a saner national security strategy and downsizing of national security institutions after he leaves the House. Will he take on that role? Are there those who would enable him to become an advocate on media that end-run the corporate media?

Thanks for keeping on this, Kevin. The use of drone technology is now the most destabilizing technology introduced since nuclear weapons and because of the time decisions involved further concentrates power in the hands of the heads of state to make war arbitrarily. As I’ve repeated, “Trust us to do the right thing.” is not sufficient for a government based on law.

Perhaps, sixgill, it is not what the USA should “do”, but what the USA should not do?

What have “we” done to provoke such a “response”?

To pretend that we are attacked for no reason at all, that … “we are hated for our freedoms” … is all part of the denial that “WE” are culpable for inciting others to a violent RESPONSE … when nothing else, not reason, not humanity, not even common decency will avail.

So long as America pretends to be the innocent victim, we have no moral compass and no moral high-ground to pontificate or, honestly, “retaliate” from …

If we are the initial aggressor, as we so often have been, then we are in no position to pretend perplexity or even surprise when others tire of our destruction and obvious intent to control the rest of the world, its resources and its people …

THAT is what we must bring to the discussion, not the assumption that “SOMETHING” must be “done” …

Of course, as God’s Chosen, we Americans shall never admit that we just might be responsible for creating the situations which impel others to act.

I think the threat from “stateless actors” to our safety is greatly overblown. Repeating something like 9-11 would be damn hard these days.

What these drone strikes are about is using the US military to help insure American hegemony over vast areas of foreign natural resources and trade markets. We’re not killing folks in Pakistan or the tribal areas to keep us safe at home, we’re killing those folks as justification to keep our military in place to protect the ExxonMobil trans-Afghan oil pipeline and the mining of rare earth elements. We’re not after terriss in east Africa because of threats against us here at home, but to protect the Saudi monarchy and our oil lifeline.

And BTW: Nice post, Kevin. But I disagree on one point: the vigilante warfare is not being conducted by robots. It’s being conducted by a sociopathic President and his willing accomplices in the military. The robots are just the weapon of choice.

Ron Paul is having influence everywhere!!
He has been saying this for 40 years in his books and in Congress.
We cannot continue to agress against others who have done nothing directly (by declaration of war or an attack)on us.
To arbitrarily attack anyone because they might be a threat is like me shooting my neighbor because we had words and I am afraid he “might” do something.
When individuals do it we call it murder. When governments do it (esp. our own) we want to call it prudence.

How about looking at our cultural mythology, our “Manifest Destiny”, our bloody empire, based upon the destruction of an indigenous people, the enslavement of others, and continuing, brutal warfare, at the slightest “provocation”, real or imagined?

Such is not “human nature”, however, it IS the behavior of sociopaths …

And, when sociopaths are in favor, as they have been from the inception of this nation, as Jefferson and Franklin were aware and warned against, then the sociopath is held to be noble … and greed is said to be “good” …

Ridiculous to blame the Dems. This is endemic within the system. Both sides have been doing it since after the Civil War.
Look at what we did to the Phillipines when we “liberated” them from Spain.
Listen to Eisenhower’s warning in his last address to the nation where he speaks of the “Military Industrial Complex” that was, even then, running things in Washington.
the answer is to rise up and change it, preferably by peaceful refusal to cooperate with government.

But those of us who don’t want these goings on, we have to answer a serious strategic and tactical question: “What do we propose to do to stop a serious violent threat from stateless actors who set up shop in these areas?”

What do we propose to do to stop a serious violent threat from stateless actors who set up shop in these areas?

This is posed as an abstract question, and it is not. The situation with respect to whatever groups plan terror attacks (conduct asymmmetrical warfare) against the US is anchored in concrete political conflicts. The first proposal is political: unwind those conflicts and suck the oxygen out of their movement.

That brings us to a very difficult (for the US government) policy decision. The US must bring Israel to heel for its violation of human rights in Palestine and, if Israel will not listen, cut off all foreign aid.

The US must move quickly to remove the necessity of access to large supplies of oil as a requirement for national defense. That will allow the US to let events in the Middle East and especially Saudi Arabia take their course without it affecting “US national interests”.

The US must accept, not deny or fight, its loss of global supremacy as the “world’s remaining superpower” (Bush’s legacy). And must work with other global powers to create an global security environment in which there is a dramatic reduction of militaries and military expenditures.

The US must immediately leave Afghanistan and Pakistan to deal with their internal political issues without US interference.

The US must stop profiling Muslims and infiltrating mosques with agents provacateurs in order to get high-profile FBI busts.

The US must reduce its expenditures on NSA and TSA to get those agencies to focus on dealing with real prevention instead of operating a dragnet that threatens civil liberties for everyone. Too much data–not enough analysis is what the conventional explanation for the failure in 9-11 is.

The US must abandon the idea that it can do counter-insurgency in someone else’s country. We have tried that in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan and it does not work–even with draconian violations of international law. Time to stop doubling down.

As for the random guy who gets through the net next Thursday and sets off a bomb in the US, if that happens drones would not have prevented it.

The use of drones is primarily another form of security theater to show that we are doing something and to keep folks in rural areas (you use a drone in a city and you are in deep trouble) hunkered down. With the hope that among those hunkered down are some of the “insurgents” or “militants”. And occasionally the intelligence is such that instead of killing an innocent farmer, you actually get an important “insurgent”. It’s a lottery. And the reason it’s a lottery is that the targeting is only as good and as timely as the on-the-ground intelligence. No one asks where that comes from and how reliable it might be. Or whether it’s contracted out to foreign nationals supervised by SAIC or Academi or some other private defense contractor.

Let us hope that if Kucinich decides to take that path he won’t copy Feingold and act as a Democratic/Obama sycophant. Looks like there was a reason for Feingold to name his organization “Progressives United” rather than “United Progressives”. “PU” is much more appropriate than “UP”.

These “stateless actors” are largely able to attack America because we are an empire. We have somewhere between 800-1000 bases of operations around the world that could be attacked at any moment. These are operations that exist with a purpose of expanding and preserving the reach of American superpower. We could reduce our presence in countries and that would go a long way to reducing violence by “stateless actors.”

Could not agree more, but that would mean less funding for the MIC, and war and war machines are one of our few remaining claims to No.1 status in the world. Just think what reduced conflict would do to further the trade imbalance and impact our exports.

Kucinich would be wise to support movemental politics instead of institutional politics. Feingold never grasped that difference (see my comment on the Roberts diary of the Democrats cutting themselves off from real movemental politics).

Remember what happened to Ward Churchill when he stated that 9/11 was blowback from our rapacious foreign policy. If O’s NDAA had been law back then, he would have been disappeared. It’s interesting to note that the US is one of the few world powers that unconditionally supports a small ME nation that also utilizes the “victim” argument to support their unjustified military actions.

And just like destruction from afar, whether it be bombs or missiles from a plane at 10,000 feet, utilizing drones depersonalizes government sanctioned murder and limits the risk of offending the public with the wounding or death of our human forces, making killing “others” more acceptable.

I can’t help but admire Ron Paul for his intelligent view on foreign policy. When I saw Michelle Obama on the Daily Show asking what we could do to lessen the terrible impact of war on our armed forces personnel, I thought the obvious answer was to stop engaging in unnecessary, unjustified, illegal conflicts/wars. No one seemed willing to provide that solution.

As DW pointed out; it is learned behavior. Where do you think the vast majority of vigilante cop shows and films are produced? There is a segment of the American population obsessed with gun ownership to the point that they fetishize the 2nd amendment.

“Getting them over there before they get us here” has been the excuse for American empire since “Manifest Destiny”

I didn’t make the claim to be “postmodern”, that would be Obama, nor did I blame the “Dems”. I’m well aware of US history (as opposed to the propaganda that’s taught in US schools) and our government’s foreign policies that promoted the subjugation of other nations to benefit our corporations through covert and overt military and economic means. I’m also aware that partisanship is a distraction perpetrated by the duopoly, promoted by corporate media, and that our government is a scripted reality show that is, in essence, Kabuki Theatre.

Looks like we’re in agreement, so kindly don’t attribute to me words I didn’t write.

You took that out of context. You left off the most important part, which is foreign policy. Unfortunately his views on regulation of corporations and support of “free market” capitalism should be regarded as batshit crazy.

Please-look at every society of the past. All of them have this type of stuff. Go to India today and different ethnic groups are oppressed by others. Every nation in the world has tried to purge those who were “different”.
The so called enlightened nations of Europe are increasingly being more and more aggressive toward those who are not native. eg. the recent closing of borders between the EU nations that for years had allowed free passage between one another. The Western (say richer) ones don’t like the Polish, Czechs, etc. coming in and taking their jobs.
It is, as I said, human nature. America may be the modern example of this but all warring nations have always murdered anyone in the way of their “vision”.

To the people responded to me: I am long since an absolute Chomsky leftist who supports stopping foreign wars, hegemony, etc. I think that stopping killing Muslims is a requirement at this point. However, the violent organizations that have developed won’t evaporate overnight. It was only this year that the CIA interrupted an attempt to bomb an airplane heading into the US, with a bomb designed to get through metal detectors and probably a pat down as well.

Again, to make it clear, I am a long-term opponent of US militarism and hegemony. In the short-term, there are people, a few them, who really will try to kill us.

What do we do about them?

I’d say, put some of our skin in the game – get the drones out of the picture – and where it is absolutely necessary to kill one of these actors, make sure it is done by our people at risk. This will reduce civilian casualties, and cause us to approach these killings with a caution due to the cost and risk that drone killings escapes for us.

The RIGHT to bear arms has nothing whatsoever to do with revenge. It is about defense.
If someone attempts to use deadly force against us as a nation we have a right to defend ourselves. The same is true of an individual.
The problem is that their has not been a direct, unprovoked attack since the Revolutionary War.

In the short-term, there are people, a few them, who really will try to kill us.

And this is different from most of the history of American empire how? There have been foreign national attacks in the US in the past–none on the scale of 9/11 but there were few historical domestic terror attacks on the scale of Oklahoma City.

What you are advocating is the Bush policy of finding people and the Obama policy of killing them instead of the Bush policy torturing them and imprisoning them forever.

Why do we have the obligation to outline a short-term alternative at all except for prudent measures within the US? By now DHS has thought of every possible thing that could be used for a weapon including grandma’s skin lotion. And out intelligence is gathering too much information irrelevant information instead of identifying real risks.

And “organized mayhem”, that is war, requires training for the “warriors” (and propaganda for the masses).

War is a “game” of the elite, made use of to exploit “tribal identity” and inculcated fear of the “other”. Its purpose is domestic control quite as much as broader hegemony and control of those resources necessary to support human life.

What we are experiencing, and have been these past ten thousand years, as a species, is the glorification of the sociopath with the occassional “bow” to full-blown psychopaths …

Well since the economic policies followed by both the democrats and republicans for 75 or more years has not been working it might be worth looking into Austrian Economics.
If you have never read the basics you know nothing about it so have little basis for any factual criticism. BTW most economists who publicly criticize it have never read the basics either as is telling when one reads their critiques. That includes those on the right or the left.

Perhaps you have never had the benefit of being a parent or you had a child that was of a passive temperament.
I had both. One who was meek and quiet and one who from the time he was born wanted his way. Sorry but you can not blame training on a one year old sitting next to another that smacks the other to get his toy.
Nor can you, necessarily blame genes. I have seen it in families with several children all with different personalities. Some are just more aggressive. That is why NO and spanking are used. Not beating-spanking for those who would “never hit a child”.

So Kevin — how do you propose that we detect and stop people such as the organization that nearly succeeded in bombing a plane heading into the US earlier this year, with a specially designed bomb that would have gotten through metal detectors and a pat down?

I don’t recall saying I ever spanked a child for “saying something” What I was saying is that NO, as in telling a child no, and spanking are tools.
If you look at the earlier context aggressive action sometimes needs an aggressive response. That was the line of reasoning. I am sorry if it was not more clear.

Shut down the CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS…oh h..l the whole government that wants to control you, me and the world for their overlords (It is only a conspiracy if, in the end, it turns out to be untrue)
The guy is was seen being led by a (possible) spook past the ticket counter without having to go through normal procedure. I want to know who THAT person works for.
Whose bomb was it. I suspect it was ours.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares

However, the violent organizations that have developed won’t evaporate overnight.

Violent anti-US organizations will no doubt disappear from the Earth long before US imperialism is gone. The problem is that the US does not even show any sign of willingness to quit the game.

What do we do about them?

Why do you think an answer is necessary on this debate forum? I’m sure Interpol will handle them all just fine. If you have a special interest in stopping them, you might consider submitting your resume and a cover letter to Interpol.

Yes yes I am completely anti-imperialist myself. In the meantime it sounds like (judging by your asshole comment) that you suggest fighting international terrorism be solely placed in the hands of Interpol. Is that the case?

REALLY?
Lincoln had ordered that all ports in the south be blocked so that they could not trade cutting them off economically.
He was amassing troops at the borders of several States planning an invasion. Let me see. No provocation. Like FDR didn’t provoke the Japanese by threatening other countries to cut off all of their oil supplies so they felt compelled to attack Pearl Harbor to destroy some of the ships enforcing that.

Likewise, you should be aware that the figure the CIA reported was responsible for the (new and improved) bomb design was killed in air strike apparently as a consequence of their involvement. Those famous anti-imperialist secular humanist proponents of democracy, the Saudi Arabian intelligence service, also played a huge role via infiltration of a terrorist network in a lawless region.

In other words, the operation was detected and stopped by military and intelligence personnel.

So I’ll repeat, despite the comments preaching leftist thought at me (I have been a leftist for the last 25 years of my life thanks, I read all the Chomsky books and others as well, I’ve protested all the wars, and in my first comment here on the damn thread I said I largely agree with the need to stop the drone strikes) that there needs to be a way to deal with the real actual violent people in the lawless places that are organized and want to attack Western nations besides just “go away from the Middle East!”

Ah, I have been a parent, and still am, of four children, all quite different, one from another. My “background” happens to be in psychology, ephraiyim, specifically social psychology, and the study of why people, in groups, in society, behave as they do, how decisions are made (or not)… and so on … and I assure you that our essential “human nature” is one of cooperation and what we term “empathy”.

The “nature” described by Desmond Morris and others, of human beings being inclined to violence and clawing their way to the “top”, which description benefits the self-selected elites, as it excuses their destruction, avarice, and lack of empathy as being “natural” and “human”. when, in point of actual fact, it is neither. That view of “human nature” is neither universal nor supported by any honest evaluation of human society … even when that society’s civility is, as is ours, under unrelenting assault, MOST people, most human beings DO care about those around them … unless they have been TAUGHT, consistently and over time to fear and loathe those who are “different”.

If our nature were simply viciously self-serving, then we would not be having this discussion for it profits none of us, in the immediate sense, and, if we “believed” that human nature was “set” … then there would be no point in seeking to consider changing “our” war-like ways, and yet, that IS precisely what we are all doing here, on this thread, to greater or lesser degree.

An attempt by U.S. President James Buchanan to reinforce and resupply Anderson, using the unarmed merchant ship Star of the West, failed when it was fired upon by shore batteries on January 9, 1861. South Carolina authorities then seized all Federal property in the Charleston area, except for Fort Sumter.

Since all of this happened outside of public view, how exactly is the public sure of the facts in the case. It is clear from the profiles of prisoners in Guantanamo that intelligence services can pick up people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time and assert that they are terrorists when they are not. Or talk about an imminent danger of attack that is a fabrication.

The method to deal with overseas ‘bad actors’ is called intelligence. This is the opposite of how we deal with them, pure violence, which is the opposite of intelligence, as it takes no account of the repercussion and ramifications of our actions.

Thank you. How many people in this country die each from shit we don’t even pay attention to?

But we spend a trillion dollars on a mind-numbingly stupid MIC.

I reiterate. If we spent this money on our own health, and stopped killing people and repressing them around the globe, we’d have money left over to build a renewable energy infrastructure.( my idealism showing)

The United States military “project” is unquestionably the most egregious waste of time and resources that the world has ever seen.

Nothing else even comes in a distant second. The other contenders are so far at the back of the pack by comparison that they’re statistically indistinguishable from actually useful human endeavors. It’s the U.S. military as one dot at the very top of the chart and then a flat sea of marks at the bottom for everything else ever attempted by mankind.

From Dana Priest and William Arkin, Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State

Such dread was a large part of the post-9/11 decade. A culture of fear had created a culture of spending to control it, which, in turn, had led to a belief that the government had to be able to stop every single plot before it took place, regardless of whether it involved one network of twenty terrorists or one single deranged person. This expectation propelled more spending and even more zero-defect expectations. There were tens of thousands of unsolved murders in the United States by 2010, but few newspapers ever blared this across their front pages or even tried to investigate how their police departments had to failed to solve them all over the years. But when it came to terrorism, newspaper and other media outlets amplified each mistake, which amplified the threat, which amplified the fear, which prompted more spending, and on and on and on.

I don’t think that you need to be an economist of any school to know that replacing the privately owned Fed with a true national central bank under the Sec of the Treas, and returning authority for printing money to the Treas Dept as specified in the Constitution would be very good policies.

let me put it another way: endorsing Paul’s effort to End the Fed is not the same as endorsing his preferred mechanism or policy to replace it. Making an ally out of Stalin to defeat Hitler did not mean that we approved of Stalin or communism.

Do you feel that you have some personal responsibility to fight the War On Terror? You seem to be stuck in this rhetorical mode of “Yes yes I am completely anti-imperialist myself” while at the same time reverting to the idea that “we” should control the world somehow out of the fear that “they” would still be something too big for Interpol to prosecute even if US imperialism and its counterpart in the Israeli apartheid state (a project which would be brought to its knees were US aid to be suspended) were to end tomorrow. How is that not itself an advocacy of imperialism?

Yes, when “national security means the health and well-being of the individuals who comprise society, rather than military “might”, then there shall be the opportunity of a more reasoned and rational approach to many things, ackack. Energy resources necessary to life and their more honest and realistic availability to all, among those things, as well as other resources fundamental to life and well-being … beyond a mere subsistence, beyond hegemony and “control” by the few … a more moral and humanly decent sensibility, all around.

‘Tis not idealism, but the only sane pathway to a sustainable, just, and human society, to a reasonable future. Perhaps even giving rise to a new and permanent Renaissance?

Well, for something that doesn’t work, Bin Laden sure achieved a lot of his goals using it. He got the US military base in Saudi Arabia closed, he got us to abandon our Bill of Rights in our GWOT, etc. Every time you have to take your shoes off to board a plane, thank OBL.

I wonder how you are suppose to act when giant killer insects run on AI are killing all your sons, husbands, fathers, and more. America is now run by a corporation and that corporation runs on AI. The Operating system is greed and all effort is to that objective with costs as no object.

Our controllers act and think like machines. They and their structures are AI. The actions are programed to acquire land and property as the prime directive. The humans interfere with the acquisition directive. They must be exterminated.

The elite no longer need the humans and the AI is taking care of it. The AI runs foreclosure software also. It churns it out, finds the legal avenue. Types the paper. boom you’re in foreclosure. The new mandate is part of the foreclosure software. Get ready to fight for everything you have.

Israel still has its boot on Palestine, and most of all the Saudi royal family are still happy as clams. And although the US sacrificed its ability to the world’s sole superpower, it still is not the shambles (yet) that the Soviet Union was after its withdrawal from Afghanistan.

I always marvel at those who don’t even flinch at spending hundreds of billions on bullshit military adventurism, ostensibly to protect all of us, our safety and well-being, resulting in the deaths of thousands for spurious reasons, while at the same time fighting with tooth and nail to prevent single-payer health care from being implemented, something which has direct and positive heath implications for all Americans.

I must ask. Which of these is a better use of resources, given that the end desired is really the same, our health?

Most respectfully, sixgill, your comment exemplifies what I find most disturbing about America c. 2012: the dispensability of anything that might be called a moral compass. You pose the following dilemma:

“But those of us who don’t want these goings on, we have to answer a serious strategic and tactical question: ‘What do we propose to do to stop a serious violent threat from stateless actors who set up shop in these areas?’”

This is very much the same as saying, “You know, I really dislike torture, but we can’t address that issue without addressing the question of how to get information out of recalcitrant prisoners.” The depravity of torture is not in any way contingent on the need to get information, any more than the depravity of the president’s drone killings of innocents — indeed, as Obama’s administration admits, killings of persons unknown — is contingent on the need to deal with “stateless actors who set up shop in these areas.” Merely framing the moral situation in such terms of “strategic and tactical” expediency is to betray the utter lack of recognition of the depravity at hand.

I propose the killing of every male Muslim at birth, and the rape by non-Muslims of every Muslim woman between the ages of 16 and 30. Now let’s all acknowledge that this proposal can’t be put to rest until we find the means to deal with the serious violent threat “these areas” present.

Wasn’t Friedrich Hayek an advocate of Austrian Economics? If so, he taught at the University of Chicago and was the guru of Milton “Disaster Capitalism/Shock Doctrine” Friedman whose economic policies have been utilized to create debt slavery throughout the world by the “Chicago Boys”.
As a matter of fact, that school of economic thought has been implemented in the US and is largely responsible for our current economic disaster and that afflicting Europe, as well. It’s basically anti-Keynesian and benefits the haves by exploiting, subjgating, and oppressing the have-nots.

But your reasonable proposal would devastate the only product, besides bullshit in the form of advertising, that is USA, Inc.’s only viable export – weapons of death & destruction. Technically BS is a weapon of mass distraction, but it seems to be more effective when used domestically.

Ever since the US legalized the policy of entrapment, the government is free to concoct schemes to induce fear in the populace whenever it desires. Seems to incredibly effective, especially when teamed with the dumbing-down of the citizenry.